Last spring I told people that Colorado football coach Jon Embree has a second honeymoon period. I wasn't looking to be optimistic. I was looking at CU's roster. His 3-10 team lost its best players, and no team in the Pac-12 lost more starters. Dan Hawkins' paltry recruiting efforts would leave Embree with eight seniors, not even enough for an intramural team.

But after nonconference play I have come to one inescapable conclusion: The honeymoon is over. This staff has done the football equivalent of losing its house payment at the island casino blackjack table.

I wrote last week that the loss to Sacramento State was the worst in 123 years of Colorado football. That claim to shame lasted seven days. Saturday's 69-14 public embarrassment at Fresno State topped it. It topped them all.

This 0-3 start has dropped Colorado to an embarrassing abyss, one not overlooked across the country. ESPN's Chris Fowler, a proud Colorado alum, tweeted Sunday: "24-hr cooling off period. But I'm still speechless. In shock at HOW low CU Buffs football has sunk. And my '12 expectations were LOW."

In the San Jose Mercury News, Jon Wilner ranked Colorado 13th — in the Pac-12. The Los Angeles Times' Chris Dufresne wrote Monday that Colorado "may be the worst team in I-A."

Oh, on a neutral field, I might take Colorado over Massachusetts. Then again, UMass is in its first season at this level. Colorado is in its third century.

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Has any college team had a more embarrassing start this season? Again, let's do the painful review: CU opened with a loss to a rebuilding Colorado State team that has shown it's not as good as that victory indicated. Then the Buffs lost to Sacramento State, which was 4-7 in the FCS a year ago and also lost its best players. Fresno State is rebuilding under a new coach and was trampled in the first half by Oregon.

Will that Oct. 27 game in Eugene, Ore., have a running clock?

We all understand how little talent Embree has. He has started two true freshman cornerbacks. His starting tailback is a true freshman and a converted high school fullback. The lone deep threat, Paul Richardson, is out for the year. Kansas transfer Jordan Webb has struggled at quarterback. The shocking aspect of this team, however, isn't how young the players are. It's how little they've progressed. They appear to be getting worse. And that's how Embree and coordinators Eric Bieniemy and Greg Brown, both in their first positions as sole coordinators, will be judged.

Embree's record this year is a non-factor. We all know what likely will happen. The school's first winless season has gone from a scary possibility to a likely ugly fate.

However, if this coaching staff isn't developing the young talent that it recruited, as well as the veterans it inherited, that's a problem.

Joel Klatt, a respected sports radio talk show host and the last quarterback to lead Colorado to a winning record in 2005, told me CU athletic director Mike Bohn knew this rebuilding process would take a long time. So he hired an inexperienced but eager staff of Buffs for Life, knowing the coaches would grow with the program.

That doesn't work in the Pac-12, however. This conference eats inexperienced coaches alive. Ask former Washington State coach Paul Wulff. Then ask UCLA fans if they're upset athletic director Paul Guerrero didn't hire a Bruin when he tabbed Jim Mora.

I had a nice talk with Colorado president Bruce Benson on Monday. He won't micromanage the football program. He's staying out of it, other than obligatory support for Embree's program and Bohn's overall athletic program.

I don't know if Benson knows if a football is pumped or stuffed, but that's not all bad. A college president first and foremost should be concerned with the university's academic standards and financial well-being. Benson has done that. Since he arrived in 2008, research funding broke school records three consecutive years.

But if the athletic department is the front porch of a university and the football program is the welcome mat, then Benson might need to come down from his ivory tower. The university's front porch has become a dumpster fire.

Boulder is burning, folks, and the beast that the Pac-12 has become may fan the flames.

Lockheed says object part of 'sensor technology' testing that ended ThursdayWhat the heck is that thing? It's fair to assume that question was on the minds of many people who traveled along Colo. 128 south of Boulder this week if they happened to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, silver projectile perched alongside the highway and pointed north toward town.

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